There are known dispensers, such as found in washrooms, rest stops, and the like which meter a length of paper towel from a supply roll contained in a housing having an external lever. Actuation of the lever by a user causes paper to be pulled from the supply roll where it is metered through an exit slot found in the bottom of the dispenser housing. The user pulls the extending portion of paper, enabling the paper to be cut by an adjacent knife assembly. Overuse of the lever prior to cutting sometimes causes paper to bunch up in the bottom of the housing.
Similarly, there are other known dispensers which allow a predetermined length of paper towel to be removed from the bottom of a vertically stored stack of folded pre-cut paper towels through a slot in the bottom housing. Problems with this type of machine include removing too many sheets of the paper towel at one time, insufficient surface area of towel in a single sheet, and the associated costs of the manufacturer to provide folded sheets, as opposed to providing a supply roll, the common and simplest form of paper manufacture.
A need developed to provide a paper towel dispenser which automatically dispensed sheets from a housed supply roll by the user. Such mechanisms are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,441,189, issued to Formon et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,078,033, issued to Formon, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,161,723, and 5,257,711, each issued to Wirtz-Odenthal, among others. Each of the dispensers, however, involve relatively complex mechanisms, having several intricate subassemblies and an inordinate number of parts, making manufacture difficult and expensive. In addition, these mechanisms are not mass-producible, especially processes using lightweight plastic-molded materials.